It could just be the washed-up carcass of Meredith, but something about Grey’s Anatomy smells fishy here at PopWatch HQ. ABC announced today that Taye Diggs has joined the Grey’s spinoff about mighty neonatal surgeon Dr. Addison Montgomery. So think about it: creator Shonda Rhimes wants Isaiah Washington outta there, but needs a sneaky way to do it besides a straight-up firing. So she can introduce Diggs’ character in a Grey’s epiosde that will serve as a back-door pilot to the Addison spinoff, and she can quietly write Washington out at the end of the season by breaking up Burke and Cristina (Sandra Oh, pictured). Then, if the Addison show isn’t a great big hit (or if it never gets off the ground in the first place), she and Taye can merge back into the Seattle Grace lovefest, and there’ll be a new attractive black man who is not a known homophobe on Grey’s. The switch can be blamed on story lines and development decisions. With all the glam publicity sure to accompany all of this, it’s a win-win for ABC.

What do you think? Are we being overly conspiratorial, or is this a plausible scenario?